The Thing About A Hangover

I’m just finishing my first year of university and, as you can imagine, this means some pretty big celebrations. Or rather, consumption of a huge amount of alcohol on empty stomachs leading you to forget the ‘best night ever’ that sums up the last 8 months of your life spent with people you won’t be seeing again for another three and a half months. Yes, that’s student logic right there. Of course, because of all that ethanol your body has soaked up, the day after is spent nursing an almighty hangover that ensures the last bit of time you have to enjoy the company of your soon-to-be-no-longer flatmates is spent cradling your head alone in your room and cringing at any kind of sound someone dares to make. That was how I could be found yesterday and because of all the pain I had to endure, I thought I’d spread it around a bit and share with you my version of The World’s Worst Hangover.

A few disclaimers – this was a one off night of extravagant drinking and not something I go and do every weekend; everybody else was equally as drunk as me; I hadn’t drunk at all for about 2 months before this so my body was more of a lightweight than usual; binge drinking can be dangerous and you should check out all the facts before you partake in such shenanigans.

World’s Worst Hangover As Experienced By Alice

Wake up at 9:30 (after going to bed at 5:30) still slightly drunk with the uncertain feeling that you may throw up at any second.

Debate whether getting out of bed will unsettle your stomach further and push you into the certain feeling that you will throw up in approximately 3.5 seconds.

Get up anyway after further attempts of sleep fail to make you feel any better.

Stumble into the bathroom and stay there for a while until your stomach stops practicing gymnastics.

Go back to your room and use up half of your mouthwash to try and banish the stale cider taste.

Curl back into the bundle of covers on your bed trying to find the least offensive position to sleep in.

Give up and attempt to read the words that are wriggling around the pages of your book as you lent your laptop to a friend the night before and can’t participate in the normal morning activities such as checking Facebook to discover the hideous photos of you taken throughout the night.

Switch between reading, staring into the distance to prevent the carsick feeling the reading induces, and trying to get a bit more sleep.

Eventually make it to your desk chair and take 10 minutes with your head in your hands to allow your body to acclimatise to the sitting position.

Realise that each of your vertebrae hurts an immense amount.

Spend the next few minutes examining the rest of your body and discovering a worrying amount of bruises, scrapes and swollen lumps.

Try to figure out how exactly each of these injuries occurred and coming up blank.

Finish your book.

Flick through all texts sent and received throughout the night and being pleasantly surprised with your ability to send not only coherent, but mostly correctly spelt messages to only 2 friends.

Tentatively sip a glass of water knowing it will make you feel better in the long run.

Build up the courage to eat a banana (that somehow tastes of cider) to satisfy your rumbling stomach despite knowing the possible consequences.

Wonder how you ever survived without a laptop and decide to attempt to access internet on your 6 year old mobile phone.

Welcome the arrival of your laptop with a grimace as you stand up to take it from your friend.

Do an emergency scan of Facebook to discover that everyone must have forgotten their cameras that evening.

Contemplate having a shower and getting dressed as some point.

Decide against this quickly.

Waste your whole day on the Sims and watching YouTube videos as you have absolutely no revision to do and absolutely no desire to leave your room until the pounding in your head subsides a little.

Venture out of your room at about seven pm in search of a friend who is able to fill you in on the information that has somehow slipped your mind.

Discover that as you were waiting for your friends to come out of the club, you thought it was a good idea to slide down the brick wall and sit on the floor (which explains the missing skin from your spine).

Force yourself to eat and drink some more and surprisingly feel slightly better for it.

Feel eternally grateful to your friend who insisted on standing over you until you had struggled your way through two glasses of water (with most of it ending up all down your top – don’t judge me too much, this happens quite often when I’m 100% sober!) and making sure you made it to your bed the night before.

Collapse into bed, praying for a full nights sleep.

Pass out.

Well there you have it. The list of events that exposes me as a true university student and one that I’m sure my mum is incredibly glad is now all over the internet.